Greater Greenville Ugadi-2006 Celebrations - A cut above the rest
Sat, April 15, 2006; Posted: 9:26:17 am EST
Related Categories: USA
Telugu Association of Greater Greenville, South Carolina, USA (www.taggsc.org) had organized grand Ugadi celebration on April 8, 2006 to mark the beginning of the Telugu New Year ‘Vyaya Namah Samvatsaram’. The organizers did not spare any ‘Vyayam’ (meaning expense) to make it the best show ever in their tenure. The four hour long program was packed with display of a wide variety of talent – by kids and adults.
There was a record attendance of almost 450 adults and kids packing the East Minster Presbyterian Church Hall. The evening began at 4:00 pm with a short social hour where people got a chance to meet old friends and make some new ones over a yummy snack of ‘Mirapakaya Bajji’ and ‘Masala Vada’.The cultural segment was performed on a beautifully decorated stage giving it a very Indian touch. Dev, Sarat & Subhashini along with most of the volunteers did much of the stage planning and setup. The programs kicked off at 4:30 pm with a traditional devotional beginning by offering a prayer to Lord Ganesha called ‘Ganapathim.’ rendered superbly by Smt. Lakshmi. Support on tabla aptly provided by multi talented Prakash.
Patriotic feelings were presented in the form of a song first to ‘TELUGU THALLI’ in ‘Maa Telugu Thalli Ki, Mallepu Dhanda’ by Samyukta followed by ‘Jaya Jaya Jaya Priya Bharata Janani’ to Mother India by four Parikini clad young girls.
The trade mark event of TAGGSC has been their kid’s fancy dress competition with a lot of beautiful traditional costumes. Many of the costumes were created with painstaking details using commonly available resources. Prize worthy characters include a Tribal girl -Koyapilla(Sravya), Miss. Andhra 2006(Ramya), Bethal(Praneeth) and Ravana(Nikhil). Other notable portrayals include Goddess Durga(Shreya), Lord Shiva(Srikar), Narada(Rohit), Sai Baba(Aneesh), Charlie Chaplin(Teja), a lambadi girl(Kavya) , MGR(Anvita), a clown(Rahul), a new bride (Neela), Lord Krishna, a bollywood actress(Lilly), Radha (Neha) among others that left the audience in awe.
A folk dance was in place next presented by Pravallika (Choreographed by her mother Geetha) in ‘Eruvaka Saagalo’. Geetha also presented a superb 14 member group dance by kids in the ever popular dance number ‘Konda Kaaki’ (movie ‘Aparichitudu’). This dance number had the most vibrant costumes of the night.
Like all desi programs off-late be it on TV or on stage, movie-themed items seem to hog the lime light. The same happened this evening with little tiny tots presenting ‘Chiluka Pada Pada’, in very colorful costumes, performed by Kavya, Srikar, Shreya, Rishi & Ramya. This song was choreographed by Subhashini and Akhila. This was followed by the most appreciated group dance of the evening by seven teenagers to the song ‘Akkad Bakkad’ (movie ‘Super’) choreographed by a teenager herself, Divya. She followed later with a solo piece much to the thrill of audacious crowd. She also choreographed another piece by four little girls called ‘I Wanna Dance’ performed by Shreya, Sanjana, Meghana & Harikha.
Sai, an other young talent stole the show with his presentation of song numbers from Tollywood by boys in ‘Tension Vaddu’ and ‘Rock & Roll’. Sai also was seen later with his adult partners performing a medley in two parts titled ‘Navaratnalu’ which not only drew the whistles and shouts but also pulled several audience members on to the stage to dance along to some irresistible dance numbers.
No Indian program is complete without a piece in Classical dance form – this time it was by Sanjana performing a superb Bharatanatyam number ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ from the movie ‘Sagara Sangamam’.
Jampana Raju carried the microphone superbly as MC – supported well by Bharathi & Anita. Comic and humor relief was provided in the form of songs, a mini skit, Mock Ad, Job interviews etc which were well received by the audience.
The ladies performed a superlative play IPMA. In his directorial capacity Murthy Durbha got the best talent out in providing a very crisp, well-done play. Shyamala excelled in her role. Pavani, Jayasri, Bharathi, Jyothi & Yamini too gave a great performance.
Jayasri took the stage partnering with her hubby Dev, who coordinated the entire evening’s show, to perform a superb duet from movie ‘Chudalani Undi’. Jayasri also choreographed ‘Remo Remo’, peformed by Anvita, Rohit, Rahul, Tushar & Pranav. ; ‘Bunny Bunny’ with a brilliant performance by Teja and Harshita; and a solo dance by Sahitya entitled ‘Chadramukhi’. Sahitya, who does not have any prior classical dance experience, stunned the audience with a wonderful performance.
On the whole, the performers excelled in all their acts - dance, drama & music. Their hard work, rigorous practice and devotion paid off as they thrilled a very appreciative capacity audience. National anthem of both India and USA sung by young children concluded the cultural part of the evening.
Finger-licking traditional Andhra cuisine was served at the end of the day to top off a very successful and enjoyable evening for all. The feast also included telugu culinary specialties like Ugadi patchadi, gutti vankaya koora, Kakinada Khaja, sambar etc.
The organizers, volunteers and the sponsors deserve all bouquets for putting together such a wonderful event this year. All the organizers Alapati Sarat,,Channamraju Srinivas ,Dontukurti Sreenivas,Garipalli Ram,Gullapalli Venkat,Jarugumilli Vamsi ,Jampana Raju,Kappagantula Sekhar ,Manne Shaker,Mote Prashanth ,Narra Surya ,Patchipulusu Prasad ,Pitchala Venkatesh,Pudipeddi Venkatesh ,Kaguturu Bhaktha ,Sama Venu ,Sunkara Dev ,Thammana Sasi,Undamatla Ghandi,Vallabhaneni Krishna ,Vatsavai Raju ,Venepally Ramesh ,Yarlagadda Sridhar worked tirelessly to make this event the biggest of its kind in the history of Greenville’s Telugu Community.
More info about the association and the event can be found at http://www.taggsc.org/
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Reader's Comments
I wish to thank you for the invitation to the Celebration program.
Looks like I missed a big one. Kudos to the Organisers. I am hearing lots of great feedback.
Keep it up,
Best Wishes,
Pawan Sharma
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